Baystate Presents Safety Awards

GREENFIELD — Baystate Health System recently honored seven employees for their dedication to safety.

Initiated in 1993, the President’s Safety Award program was created to further heighten the awareness of safety in the workplace, to recognize individual accomplishment, and to reaffirm management’s commitment to safety throughout the system.

This year’s winners were:

• At Baystate Medical Center — security officer Takeshi Okamura, who broke through a window of a car at Baystate to help a woman who had accidentally locked her grandson in the car. Okamura also received the top President’s Safety Award Silver Bowl, which is displayed at the employee’s work site;

• At Franklin Medical Center — Tom McDonald, electrical foreman, for his more-than-10-year dedication to safety and for avoiding any serious injuries while working in the difficult environment of electricity, as well as for educating others about electrical safety;

• At Mary Lane Hospital — Richard Szloch, manager in Engineering; and Richard Lam, a cook/supervisor in Food and Nutrition Services, who cornered a man breaking into a car in the hospital’s parking lot and alerted police, who apprehended the suspect, who was wanted on other warrants and who had a backpack filled with stolen merchandise;

• At Visiting Nurse and Hospice of Western New England — Annette Bigelow, RN; Pat Hayes, RN; and Lisa Lampiasi, MSW, whose skilled work as a trio helped to prevent the deaths of a couple contemplating suicide.